Alphabet announced the Taara initiative, which aims to bring internet access to distant and neglected communities worldwide. This project, like Loon, uses laser technology to deliver data wirelessly v... Alphabet (Google) latest laser communication technology achieves 20Gbps at 5km distance
nutjob conspiracy theory about plague transfer or mind control ... in few weeks tops i bet .The tech seems impressive thought !
I bet if a small bird flies into the beam, it will disappear in a puff of smoke. Only some charred bone fragments and the ring, should the bird have been ringed, will remain.
This feels like a wind turbine situation. -Marketing -> They create free green energy ! -Reality -> They are not very green, take room from the environment, impossible to dispose of and kill the sh!t out of birds But its ok because some huge company makes a zillion dollars off of it.
It's ok though because Google will become "bird neutral" by opening hatcheries that free baby birds (who then he lased to death too).
It must be hard to keep the signal pointed in the correct direction? I mean does wind not shake the tower and cause the laser to go all over the place? It used to do that when I had some sort of line-of-sight radio type internet years ago that pointed to some tower miles away. It was on my roof on 10ft pole and wind / storms make the mast shake and rattle and noisy as hell.
Yeah, stability would definitely be my concern with it a permanent solution. Seems like a good stop-gap until they are able to run actual fiber lines to these remote areas, though! At least they'll be connected on the nice days.